Posted
by
msmash
on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @12:30PM
from the blast-from-the-past dept.

In an interview with Axios on Tuesday, Bill Gates warned Apple and other tech giants that they risk the kind of nightmarish government intervention that once plagued his Microsoft if they act arrogantly. Axios reports: The big picture: "The companies need to be careful that they're not ... advocating things that would prevent government from being able to, under appropriate review, perform the type of functions that we've come to count on." Asked if he sees instances of that now, Gates replied: "Oh, absolutely." Why it matters: With the Big Tech companies feeling they're suddenly drawing unfair scrutiny, this is Microsoft's co-founder saying they're bringing some of the problems on themselves, by resisting legitimate oversight.

They'll keep making as much profit, gain as much market share, and reducing/externalising costs as much as they can until someone or something stops them. The only way they understand of avoiding government regulation is lobbying politicians to stop legislation and funding for regulators from going through. It's the government's responsibility to protect the people from abusive practices by corporations. It's time for government to do their job.

Not only is it a legitimate personal choice to avoid Internet services or mobile devices, and not only is it possible to rig software to thwart Google's machinations, but it's also the case that Google hasn't killed millions of lives in pursuit of its goals, or thrown people into cages for making beer (Prohibition) or smoking a leafy plant in the privacy of their own homes, etc.

You're out of your mind. There is no basis for your analysis. NONE. Your subjective reality is b

Government didn't do those things. WE did. You live in a country where the people collectively wanted those things to happen. Don't try to demonize the government for doing what we instructed it to do.

It may be true that a majority of people supported locking up people who drink. But without a government to enforce that plan, the idea would not have harmed anyone. The government is not responsible for popular bad ideas. However, they are the only way those bad ideas translate into bad outcomes.

OK, cool, I suppose. If you get us to a point where we don't need a government to not get screwed by everybody else, I'll be psyched about that. But it sounds like you agree that that isn't possible today.

No amount of bold text changes the fact that "government" is not some evil force that descended from the stars to harm us. In the case of the US, it was just a bunch of guys who got together to build a decision-making framework so we could decide as a group:

In a free society, a government is interpreted as damage, and routed around.

Tell me, how does bursting into someone's private home, shooting his dog, roughing him up, and then throwing him into a cage, all for growing and smoking a plant in the "privacy" of "his own" home, come out of your 3 points?

The difference between "do as I say" and "do as we agreed" just shows that you don't consider yourself part of the community.

Government can't be an "I" in a democracy. Government in the US is "we." You and me, buddy. We get to vote and we get to convince each other we're right. And we're going to agree on things in the form of legislation, and if we don't do as we agreed, we'll end up paying fines or rotting in prison thanks to the institution we agreed to create to enforce our agreements.

Government can't be an "I" in a democracy. Government in the US is "we." You and me, buddy. We get to vote and we get to convince each other we're right.

And when you fail to convince the other person you're right, you—as the one with power and/or numbers on your side—go ahead and do it your way anyway, never mind the cost to those who disagreed, and then proceed to claim that they're equally responsible for the outcome just because they're part of this "we" you invented as cover for your own selfish choices.

So what happens with the universal stuff like theft and murder? Do I just sign a contract with the local police agency that they'll avenge my death? What if the guy who kills me pays them more than I did to look the other way? Is there someone that enforces that breach of contract? Do I need a contract with them, or is it done by a non-government government?

You need to read more books and leave the opinions until you've learned some history. Have you even looked into religions?
Have you met mankind (aka, peoplekind, heh)? Do you know how our brains work and the shit they come up with?
You're a whiner, not a complainer. Big difference.

The disaster of Somalia is the result of a failed State; the failed government was formed under single-party, "scientific" Communism.

When it inevitably collapsed into chaos, the culture of Authorianism in Somalia naturally led to the rise of warlords, who (along with their minions) are themselves a form of government yet again (that is, they are a form of organization that allocates resources by coercion rather than by agreement in advance).

The point, I think, was that true libertarianism is inevitably replaced by authoritarianism. You will never see a libertarian paradise, because it can only exist long enough for a strong man to gather enough power to destroy it.

The government wants backdoors in all encryption achemea and a dedicated password for "just" the government to unlock all encryption.

Just because a company does it doesn't mean it is right and just because the government wants it doesn't make it right.

You need oversight without blindness. Regulations encourage and help businesses to flourish, and regulations binds government hands when they overstep too.

Personally, I don't count public, opportunistic, high-profile demands for back-doors by poorly informed politicians and admins after every incidence of terrorism "good" regulation. Those people are clearly wilfully ignorant of the implications of what they're asking for. A "good" regulator will consult with qualified experts to see what the feasible options are and what their implications may be.

On the flip side to that, we've had decades of road safety regulations that have saved millions of lives and pre

I didn't read the article (naturally), so I could be completely mistaken. From the summary, I thought Gates was referring to encrypted devices Apple say they can't decrypt and won't put in a backdoor for the government.

Of course he would say this, so much of Microsoft's R&D has been outsourced to Chinese and Indian interests of very dubious quality and oversight, the idea of Microsoft ever being able to build a secure enough operating system to make the Fed nervous is laughable. So instead, embrace the fetid wreck that is Windoze and look for an angle!

Only the richest man in the world need not fear a government's invasions, for that government works for him. But the idea of his MSFT shares eroding... that's scary.

Your BS Meter that assume the Government wants to hurt People an Business only want to help.You Screw up enough and the People will Demand the Government Passes Laws. Then you only have yourself to blame.And that is Bill's Hard Learned point.

Why are you using the past-tense? He's currently taking those billions he siphoned off the productivity of the US economy and dumping them into the third world. He's literally taking our labor supply and flushing it down the drain. Not only that, but he's persuasive enough to convince a plethora of other billionaires to do the exact same thing. He's probably the biggest traitor our nation has ever seen.

Not only that, he advocates government take your money and likewise dump it into the third-world.

I submit Gates did more good in the world earning his money than he ever will giving it away.

Africa will still be a shithole in a thousand years, no matter how much money is dumped into it. I have a lot more respect for billionaires like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos (even tho he's a wanker), who actually spend their money doing things that will advance humanity in a tangible way. I submit that investing your money in

In another words, using encryption that works and not installing back doors every time the NSA asks.

Pretty much this... people who don't understand math are demanding encryption be something you can poke holes in, which you can't because math doesn't care about such things.

But if you DO poke holes in encryption, then you've undermined security for everything which relies on it, because the state actors and other people with bad intentions will know there is a hole and attack it.

There is no role for back doors in a world where people might wish to do things like Internet Banking. The average 12 year old can encrypt things completely securely if he/she listened to the maths and history teachers, without even using a computer.

There is no shortage of ways for terrorists to pass messages securely without using the Internet - although some might be marginally slower, that disadvantage is not as big as it might be since some of us have to use BT Internet legitimate commun

Considering you need a court order, if the main purpose is oppression of your own people, you're going after the wrong thing. There shouldn't be a trivial court order on your own citizens. Fix that, first.

Neither companies nor governments are stupid. If my data is not secure in your country because your country demands a "secret backdoor" (read: Secret for 5 minutes, tops, then known to every state actor with deep pockets and/or the gun at the head of the loved one of someone with the key), my data will not be stored in your country. And if your software or hardware enables this, I will not buy your hard- or software.

And "I" in this case isn't me, Joe Randomluser in his basement but big multinational corpora

You can get ahead of it, or you can get run over by it. You may get away with shenanigans for a long time, but once you cross the line, the government hammer is going to hit you hard. Unfortunately a lot of companies have no restraint. They will creep up to the edge of legality, pretty much guaranteeing government intervention.

You can get ahead of it, or you can get run over by it. You may get away with shenanigans for a long time, but once you cross the line, the government hammer is going to hit you hard. Unfortunately a lot of companies have no restraint. They will creep up to the edge of legality, pretty much guaranteeing government intervention.

Facebook just sold a US election to the Russians and literally nothing was done by the government.

Political advertising is not wide open and subject to various laws, even more so during elections. I know in Canada, I hear about occasional political advertising slap on the wrists from doing something against the rules.
A small group in my town bought an ad to highlight some homeless report conclusion and got fined. One fucking ad in a local paper in small town Canada. They just wanted more visibility on the issue. I didn't see it, so can't speak if it appeared as a candidate endorsement. The fine was se

If that happens to be true, it was the current government who benefitted. Why would you expect anything to be done? Trump is also letting Russia have the ME, because Trump doesn't give even a single shit about what happens there.

The problem is that the oversight provided turned illegitimate when the government decided to build a mass surveillance apparatus in violation of the fourth amendment of the US constitution. It is the government itself that is driving people to encryption. It's no surprised that trust has been lost in the government when even the local PD will hack your phone and make a complete copy without a warrant. Encryption is a way to ensure your rights because they abdicated themselves of that responsibility. The fact that they have been burned by their own bad behavior is unfortunate but there is nobody else to blame but themselves.

The problem is that the oversight provided turned illegitimate when the government decided to build a mass surveillance apparatus in violation of the fourth amendment of the US constitution. It is the government itself that is driving people to encryption. It's no surprised that trust has been lost in the government when even the local PD will hack your phone and make a complete copy without a warrant. Encryption is a way to ensure your rights because they abdicated themselves of that responsibility. The fact that they have been burned by their own bad behavior is unfortunate but there is nobody else to blame but themselves.

Exactly this.

When I read the words "legitimate oversight" the first thing I thought was "You mean for the Government? Yes, we certainly DO need legitimate oversight."

There is no reason to believe that the Democratic party has any intention of repealing the PATRIOT Act or FISA.

Unfortunately, our democracy has been crippled and has resulted in a non-representative government that doesn't work for the people because of the reductive first-past-the-post voting system that in effect in 99.9% of the country.

Well the FISA court in the end rejected blanket open-ended surveillance, it was the republican-controlled congress that passed a special law for it. You can complain that Obama should have rejected that, but using that a a bludgeon against all democrats is disingenuous.

There is no denying that Republicans, on the whole, are worse on this matter than Democrats. That said, it's important to remember 2 things:1) Some of the biggest friends we have on this issue comes from the libertarian wing of the Republican party (Rand Paul, Justin Amash, etc)and2) The majority of democrats also voted for the law that expanded the NSA's powers (including the democratic leaders of both the house and senate).

The solution is to clean both parties of the people who think this sort of crap is

Yes, vote out the entire DNC out of Congress. Obama spied on an opposition campaign, using information from Hillary, and then the DNC congress did its best to prevent citizens from finding out about it. Meanwhile at least 2 DNC senators (Schiff and Warner) were attempting to collude with Russia to get dirt on Trump while claiming doing so was treasonous.

The DNC is the enemy of the 4th amendment. They have shown they believe abuse of government is acceptable and you finding out about it is not.

These words are subject to interpretation. I initially jumped to the conclusion that he means encryption; anyone who knows anything about how good encryption works knows that that's just bullshit because math doesn't abide by human law. Then I thought about Uber's Greyball and similar advanced authority-evading tactics and I realized that there is a legitimate point to be made if that's the context he's referring to instead of encryption.

Asked for an example, Gates pointed to the companies' "enthusiasm about making financial transactions anonymous and invisible, and their view that even a clear mass-murdering criminal's communication should never be available to the government."

When I said he seemed to be referring to being able to unlock an iPhone, Gates replied: "There's no question of ability; it's the question of willingness."

That quote seems like a dodge. At its base the encryption question is one of ability, not willingness. i.e. should hardware vendors ship intentionally broken devices? Possibly the only way that should ever happen is through some governmental process. But it may be that he is being more subtle in that he is saying that Apple shouldn't make a big show about resisting the FBI compelling them to hack into their own product and instead make an honest effort and treat it as a government-funded penetration tes

Agreed that Uber Greyball is a legit example, unfortunately Gates is talking about encryption. From TFA: "When I said he seemed to be referring to being able to unlock an iPhone, Gates replied: "There's no question of ability; it's the question of willingness.""

This is nothing more than Gates taking pot shots at Apple, Microsoft's main rival. Hoping he can gall some prosecutor somewhere in to giving Apple the gift of an anti-trust lawsuit, just like he experienced long ago. Good to see that Gate's colors have not changed.

I immediately assumed from the summary that he was talking about Facebook's (initial) opacity to political advertisement requirements, but perhaps that reflects more on me than on Bill Gates. After scanning the comments, it sounds like everyone else thinks he means encryption.

Baloney. "Hate speech" is and has been a cudgel used by people who want to silence someone they don't agree with, usually for pointing out something the silencer doesn't want placed under scrutiny.

Jordan Peterson is a case in point. Reading through the accusations against him, you'd think he's Hilter, Mao, Stalin, and Satan in the flesh. And all that for the crime of pointing out that there are two genders and government has no authority to force you to believe otherwise.

..and the case of Jordan Peterson and what has transpired is proof that a good chunk of society is on the authoritarian side of it.

Jordan gets significant more hate and threats than, for example, Cathy Newman, yet Cathy and her spin machine are crying about how terrible it is that her failed wildly dishonest hatchet job on Jordan spawned the small amount of hate and threats that it did against her.

The facts of the matter are that men are predisposed to defending women for both social and evolutionary/g

That's the big problem. Sally and Joe LocalShopOwners don't want to go online and see a torrent of vile, disgusting insults thrown at them just for saying something. Women don't want to experience rape and death threats just for being a woman on a gaming site. People don't want their kids to see racist hate mongering.

There is HUGE pressure to clean up the internet. It may have started as the private playground for a few, but it's a resource for the world now, and Sally and Joe and all others like them are demanding that safe havens for the worst and most vile are taken down, and platforms become a place where reasonable humans can go without fear.

On one hand, I think that any site that want's to set rules for behavior, should. If someone makes the kinds of threats you mentioned, they should be banned.

However, if people want to have their own little racist, sexist, whatever site, then they should be able to. Obviously as long as no one is breaking the law or actually trampling someones else's rights and freedom, then what's the issue.

If I don't like it, then I don't have to visit that site. This is what I don't understand about proponents of censor

What's the problem with trillion dollar tech companies, Bill? Well, obviously not monopolistic nor oligopolistic behavior. Nor selling our profiles to anyone with money. Nor buying and selling government officials to get the money and laws they need. Nor pushing policy towards increasing inequality, autocracy, and legal invasion. Nor building advanced weaponry so we can wipe out villages and cities around the world. Nor cooperating with our spy agencies, who now know everything about us. Nor profiting from

Either Bill Gates really used the word "plagued", which would show he still does not understand how he was wrong. A common affliction amongst criminals.Or he did not use the word "plagued" and its is only part of the editorial introduction of the interview. The word can only be found there, not in any quote, and the article is absolutely crap quality, so I would not rule that out either.

I guess he doesn't understand plague, or else he'd spend a fuckload more per year on fighting preventable diseases.
Sure, he spends hundreds of millions at it (maybe low billions) but he should be Seal Team 6ing most of these diseases.
He should not be as rich or richer a decade after retirement if he's fucking doing it right. He can warm himself for the rest of his life burning cash for heat.
If spending billions and billions is bad in some way, that is a case to prevent such accumulation of cash in th

Unless we forget, Embrace Extend Extinguish. Also, some of the "contract" that required paying M$ for every "PC" sold - even if it didn't ship with Windows. I know a company that got around it by selling a rack-mount computer as a "network appliance" running Linux to get around it. You could easily install Windows on it, but there was absolutely no info on the the company web site about ever being able to do that. Abuses against other browser (notably Firefox) products. Yeah, I'd say they pretty much invite

or the French will do it for youAnyone remember the Key Escrow crap? It did not end because Demos or Republican'ts didn't want it.It ended when PGP hit the market from France proof against casual gov't spying.

PGP from France? You might want to rewrite the Wikipedia page, they seem to think PGP came from the famous Phil Zimmerman (American?) and doesn't mention France anywhere.
The only thing I can think of how France is related, is that they are famous for bribing and surveilling commercial activities for their financial benefit. It's where the US learned "they're doing it, so should we".

I remember many years ago, when the antitrust litigation was just winding down against Microsoft... one of my best friends said to me, "Have you noticed how it seems like the government really got to Bill Gates? The comments he's making suddenly all sound like exactly what they told him to say. I wonder if this was part of the settlement with them?"

At the time, I thought that was somewhat insightful -- but perhaps a bit too "tin foil hat". As time has gone on though, I'm thinking he was right on the money.

If you look at the statements Bill made before and after the Justice Dept. got ahold of him, it's a night and day difference. And ever since then, he's continued to be pretty much a mouthpiece for Federal government agendas. The latest I've seen him advocating for (after pushing "Common Core" teaching in schools) is "IEPs for all students". Honestly, that would be a horrible idea, considering the current IEP is difficult enough to get teachers and faculty up to speed on and cooperating with, when you have a student with real disabilities or behavioral problems affecting their learning. If everybody had an individualized list of requirements and details on accommodations that would "best suit them", you'd probably double or triple the cost of running public schools. You'd need far more faculty to actually go through all of the IEPs and to implement them for everyone, plus more expense providing all the things they'd ask for like quiet places to take exams by themselves.) It's madness.

No, every kid needs some exposure to tech. They might not go into it, but they need to learn shit before they get to the age where they believe in really stupid stuff, like energy crystals and the healing powers of being grounded.

I think you're missing my argument here. (I can't speak for those who push for Communism from their public education. I'm certainly not advocating for that.)

We have 3 kids in the public school system right now, and what I've seen wrong includes:

1. Systemic issues with spending FAR too much taxpayer money on administrative staff. When I was in public high school, it was a pretty good-sized school and yet you only had one person with the title of principal. Today, smaller schools than the one I attended wil

I'm for standardized tests. It sounds like it's done poorly in the US.
There should be a consistent planned curriculum for the whole state that all kids are taught. At the end of the year, you and everyone needs to know how much is learned/retained. This measures the effectiveness of teaching and the materials.
When I took Canada wide standard tests in middle and junior high, the results were pretty fucking close to each kids average grades and reflected the strengths (math) and weaknesses (English). They

One should consider why these companies want stiff regulation. They are big. They own their markets. They can absorb the extra costs and simply pass it along. Small startups cannot absorb the cost or pass it along. So effectively these companies are asking the government to stifle competition from startups. Think about it.{^_^}

M$ and BillWG seem to have made out okay despite the DOJ's attempts to prosecute them for all of the anti-trust, anti-competitive activity and the piracy they commited to build Windows and Office.
They showed the rest of tech how to buy your way out of a lawsuit with the DOJ.

Antitrust is the way that the government promotes markets when there are market failures. It has nothing to do with the idea of free information.
- Bill Gates